


Fitful Alternations of The Rain

by sunrisenpoet



Category: When The Night Comes (Visual Novel)
Genre: Fantasy, Fluff, M!Hunter - Freeform, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-19 15:03:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18137309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunrisenpoet/pseuds/sunrisenpoet
Summary: Of all the things for you to take pleasure in, you choose the thing I despise the most.”“I cannot control the weather, my love,” August sighs, biting their lip to stifle a smile.





	Fitful Alternations of The Rain

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Kissing prompts: Fluff, in the rain](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/465032) by Kris_Writes. 



It’s not that Anatole dislikes water. On the contrary, he loves it. He loves taking baths, where nothing but himself, music and the water exist. He loves lakes, rivers, he loves the Ocean and the slightly humid air of coastal towns. He loves how the world greens with rain, and there’s few things he appreciates more than those winter days where everything is frozen and covered in snow, and yet the sun is shining. Or how the ocean waves freeze, or rivers freeze: waiting, expectant, cold on the outside, and still flowing beneath the surface. Hell, he even loves a proper downpour, with gloom, mist and thunders too — he has always loved them, specially when they were off season downpours, now loving them twice as much because they reminded him of August. Love truly does make everything new.

It’s not that Anatole dislikes water, it’s that he hates getting wet with clothes on. Why would anyone _ever_ like getting wet? Umbrellas existed! Overcoats existed! Roofs existed! Rain was much more enjoyable when you had a roof to keep you dry, and until this day, any person who liked was a god-damn idiot of a fool in his opinion: an ignorant, asinine buffoon who had _never_ had to do a Hunt in the pouring rain. Then, August liked the rain. August liked getting _soaked_ by rain.

They had suggested they go for a hike, since it was a rare day they both were free (a suggestion he shouldn’t have listened to). He should’ve resisted the charms of his partner and their unparalleled wits, pushing for a stay at home day, a lazy morning; he could even make August brunch and they could have a mock picnic by the fireplace — one that would inevitably end with him crawling on top of August, kissing their neck, and jaw, and those wonderful lips they had while he ran his fingers in indiscernible patterns up and down August’s sides and their waist. However, he was well aware almost any of August’s wishes that he became aware of, was an item on his mental to do list (Filed in his head under PLANNING > TO DO > PERSONAL > AUGUST).

Earlier that day August had said let’s go hiking while they were still in bed, and Anatole got up briefly to open the window in their room. August looked beautiful between the sheets, hair loose and absolutely relaxed, although, if one asked for Anatole’s personal opinion, he’d say August would look beautiful in almost any context, ever.

“Are you sure, most darling?” He had asked as he crawled back to bed, into August’s arms. “It feels like it might rain.”

“Really?” August had said, and while Anatole couldn’t see their face as he had his own buried in August’s chest, he could hear the raised eyebrow: the one filed under PEOPLE > AUGUST > NON VERBAL GESTURES > RAISED EYEBROWS, that meant August was eager to hear whatever logic was behind his thoughts.

“It’s how it sounds, the ambience,” Anatole began elaborating, propping himself up to a sitting position. “I’m sure you know this, but when it’s going to rain atmospheric pressure decreases when it’s going to rain, and sound travels faster on lower pressures, so everything just sounds More. Or we hear more, that’s better wording.”

August chuckled, and he said as he tucked one hair strand behind his ear: “Did you know I love these little… ‘Anatole’s fun facts moments’? They are always very enlightening.”

That’s when he knew he was lost, because a moment later he was telling August that if they really wanted to go on a hike, he was willing to be wrong about the rain. But lo and behold, he hadn’t been wrong and he should’ve known, should’ve realised August _could_ sense the oncoming weather better than he would ever be able to. So all he could do know was stand under the rain, soaking get, absolutely baffled about how August had outplayed him, willingly or otherwise, trying to process why would August _out of all people_ would like how wet clothes feel on your skin, and beyond uncomfortable with his shirt sticking to his body. Not even his socks are dry, and he knows he looks like a wet cat that’s begging to be pout out of his misery, but August is leaning under a tree they’re using for refuge (a very precarious refuge at that) and they’re laughing. August is happy.

He knows it’s factually impossible but right then, he could’ve sworn he felt the weight of that tattoo he had gotten a couple of years ago that sits between his third and fourth rib, a little to the left, where his heart is supposed to be: _amor vincit omnia_ . He can take a little of discomfort for the sake of August’s happiness, because this and the potential cold he could get was nothing in comparison with seeing August simply _be_ . They had looked beautiful by morning lying in their bed, they had looked beautiful the first time they spent the night together, they had looked beautiful laughing because Anatole was _alive_ , they had looked beautiful when he first saw them all that time ago, and they sure as fuck looked beautiful now.

He hopes the poets write that Aelius Anatole Radošević was in that very moment thoroughly conquered too.

August tilted their head in invitation, and because the sun always came after the rain, Anatole went willingly. “Of all the things for you to take pleasure in, you choose the thing I despise the most.”

“I cannot control the weather, my love,” August sighs, biting their lip to stifle a smile.

He’s aware, he’s well aware. But he also knows August _knew_ , and August feigning innocence did all kinds of things to him, so if he’s going to be thoroughly and completely conquered, he’s going to revel in it. So he slips an arm around their waist for leverage and stands on the tip of his toes so they can be pressed chest to chest, casting aside that wet clothes against wet clothes is somehow even more of an awful feeling. His body against August’s is, however, one of the best feelings so he’s willing to endure, and pushing his displeasure aside he kisses them, letting out a little groan when their warm, lovely mouth meets his.

August smiles against his lips.

“I want compensation for this, you knew I was right when I said it would rain,” Anatole says when they part for air. August’s cranes their neck so they can press their foreheads together, and laughs a little.

“I never said it wouldn’t rain.”

He raises an eyebrow at them. “Plausible deniability is not going to help you now.”

He knows August is only riling him up for show, but Anatole knows them well enough to know how to persuade them a little, all he needs to do is _maneuver_ them a little, hopefully against the tree trunk, but August apparently took some pity on his discomfort and to his surprise August presses a kiss to his forehead and says: “But I suppose I could compensate you.”

“And here I was beginning to plan how to persuade you to do so.”

“Oh, were you? I wouldn’t want to stand in your way,” August teases.

He doesn’t need more cues than that to step closer to August and press them against the tree trunk, kissing their neck and scraping his teeth up the curve of it, only to take August’s face in his hands, holding them by the chin: “Gods, you sure are beautiful but especially so when you get cocky.”

“Which is grand coming from _you_.”

The next thing Anatole knows is he’s kissing August to shut them up even if they’re right, specially because they’re right, and this is a game best enjoyed when played by two. So Anatole kisses August and tangles one hand in their hair, and places the other on August’s hip and pressed himself against them. He may be wet and uncomfortable and a little on the side of cold, but there’s few things he loves more than August — few things he loves more than kissing them, than feeling their pulse fasten and seeing them blush. Few things he loves more than showing August like this what his words, however beautiful, however true, could not ever convey. How much he loves them, how much he adores them.

His beautiful moon glistening during a thunderstorm.

It’s when he’s taking one of August’s thighs to wrap their leg around their waist that the scenario of his current situation crashes, and he begins laughing against August’s lips. As if infected, August’s laughs too as they ask: “What?”

They don’t sound annoyed, instead they sound perfectly happy, if Anatole judges by their tone (and he dares judge, he’s got enough observations about August’s slight changes in their tone and manner of speaking under PEOPLE > AUGUST > TONES).

“Nothing, I just love you an awful lot — because I do, August, I love you so much. And we’re kissing, under the rain, both of us soaking wet, and it’s like someone took it out of, you know, a romance novel,” he says, laughing again. “Look, I’m even wearing a white shirt.”

He is, and it’s just as wet as the rest of him and therefore practically see-through. He notices how August’s eyes linger, despite their obvious attempts to stare him down, and he’d be a liar if he said he didn’t love how their eyes on him made him feel. His skin has goosebumps and not just because he’s cold now. It had always been like this: he still remembers that first morning in August’s office when whatever succubus had possessed him in the middle of a professional meeting made him say he already thought they’d make a great team, calling them ‘August’, throwing all formality out of the window. Sense of obedience aside, he had never been a man keen on authority for the sake of authority, but he knew himself enough to know when he was very obviously flirting with his god-damn superior.

Professional integrity and himself had had a nice run together, but they were officially terminated two days later when August and Anatole were in their own bubble in the woods, after the Lunar Festival, knowing their moment had been stolen. That was when he knew August would become someone he’d love.

He had always liked it when he’s right.

“Sadly you come with none of the lines you find so funny,” August says, snapping him back, their tone petty but not malicious.

“But I do come with the clichés,” he says, and kisses August again. “So about my compensation?”

“Yes?”

“Just join me in a nice warm bath, would you, my love?”

**Author's Note:**

> — I asked Kris if I could get the (male) hunter and August kissing under the rain, and she delivered amazingly. I've wanted to write something inspired by the prompt for a while, and a month later I finally did.  
> — The title is a reference to one of Percy Shelley's poems of the same name.  
> — If by chance you ended up here, and you haven't played When The Night Comes, consider it.  
> — Thanks for reading  
> — You can come say hi on tumblr (percvshelley) if you'd like.  
> — Finally, can you believe an ISTJ (August) and an INTJ (Anatole) fucking invented romance by calling each other 'my love' and 'most dearest'?


End file.
